A dark, medical thriller. An enigmatic chemist tends his prized orchid collection on a remote farm. International backpackers find their way there each season, desperate for work. The Chemist welcomes them all in with open arms. But what chilling, twisted secret is he hiding?

Young backpackers Gemma and Hayley arrive at the farm one summer. The farm's handsome owner, Tate Llewellyn, seems eccentric but kind, running his hobby farm and cultivating rare orchids in his greenhouse. The weeks go on, a blur of fruit-picking, parties, campfires and wading beneath waterfalls in the nearby hot springs. Tate calls the girls his orchids...hispretty orchids.

Until the night the girls find themselves on a dark highway, bruised and bloodied.

How did everything go so wrong?

Senior Detective Bronwen McKay and psychologist Megan Arlotti question the terrified girls. But Hayley and Gemma are telling two very different stories of what happened to them over the past three months.

The chemist and his pretty orchids were a family of mango pickers. Backpackers from around the world were recruited from others to join the family for mango season during the summer months. Tate’s farm offered food, fun, and boarding.When two girls are found on the highway being chased by a man detectives and Psychologist Megan Arlotti are assigned the case. With the perpetrator identified and dead, the detectives first focused on the girls trying to fill in the gaps from the point of arrival.Megan was just a psychologist who’d stepped way past her professional boundary lines trying to help piece together the timeline of events that brought these girls here. Megan worked closely with the detectives assisting them with any information she could retain from the girls.The story was laid out into three parts: Part 1 was about determining who the girls were. Part 2 was about determining what happened to the girls. Part 3 was determining why this happened to the girls. Followed up with a spectacular epilogue.

Overall:These two authors brought a bone chilling discovery of what it’s like to have a brilliant mind. Tate was a brilliant chemist who grew orchids in his greenhouse while also cultivating mangoes on his farm. There were unexpected twists and turns that had me gasping for breathe. This was definitely a page-turner. Normally I tried to puzzle the pieces together myself, but I this type I just let the authors tell their story and let it unfold the way it was intended.

I liked both detectives collaborating with the psychologist sharing ideas and concepts to proceed in the case. I liked all the supporting cast of characters they enhanced the story and brought this story to life.The writing was superb with just enough information to keep me entertained.I had to look up all the images of orchids and that bellyache bush just to help illustrate with an image. Fascinating plants required an image lookup.

Excellent thriller! So many twists and turns that I didn't see coming! I immediately was attracted to the characters and the plot line. Little did I know how twisted the plot really was! I will definitely be reading more books by these two authors.

I did not like the fact that the story is not told in order. It starts quite well, then a third of the way through, the story line goes to the beginning. I think it would have been better had it been chronological.

The book opens with a truck driver seeing two teenage girls running across a highway to get away from a man. He crashes the truck trying to avoid them, the girls are rescued and taken to a hospital. While Gemma and Hayley are recovering, they tell the detectives a bizarre and horrible story. But their stories don't quite match...

The book is three sections: the aftermath of the accident in the hospital, then three months prior when the girls arrived at the mango farm, then the present. It dragged a little in the last section, I thought things could have been moved along a little quicker. I also wished the police had been a little smarter, they really should've figured things out before they did.

Nothing is what it seems, both Gemma and Hayley are unreliable narrators at times, and there were enough twists to keep me guessing. I found the epilogue pretty chilling.